What are creatives in mobile apps?

Creatives are the assets you use as part of a user acquisition strategy to attract new users to your app or game. Essentially, they are ads that drive user engagement and more downloads. Ads are often referred to as “creatives.”

Good creatives can be the difference between a successful game, and a game that fails. The quality of creatives has increased dramatically over the past two years as the app marketplace has become more competitive, particularly for games using the in-app advertising monetization model. 

How to make good creatives

You may have a highly talented and creative team, but without a fixed methodology, it’s difficult to make creatives that will take your game to the next level. You can never have too much information when it comes to creating your ads, and in this case, too much information will help you identify which ads are top-performing and iterate on them for success. 

Test

Always test your ads, looking at different element changes and overall user experience to identify what works and what doesn’t. You can never test too much, but there is always a good possibility you’re not testing enough. 

Measure

Trust the data and use it to make strategic decisions by testing with your key audiences. Measure your ads by focusing on KPIs such as installs, conversion ratio (CVR) and click-through rates (CTR). 

Invest

Good and effective ads have the ability to impact your bottom line and grow your games. This means you should allocate resources and budget for creative testing. You have spent a lot of time perfecting the game, now it’s time to work on your user acquisition. 

Types of ad formats:

Playable ads

Playable ads are interactive and allow users to engage by completing simple actions. For mobile game developers, playable ads allow prospective users to try out a game before downloading.

Video ads

Video ads are short commercials that show up in between a certain number of gameplay sessions or can be triggered by the user for rewards.

Rewarded video ads

Rewarded video ads are creatives that are triggered by users in exchange for an in-game reward. 

Graphic ads

Graphic ads are static images that appear at various times throughout a game or app. 

Banner ads

Banner ads are small ribbons that appear in an app or game’s user interface. This allows players to keep using their app while seeing a small ad. Banners can be static or animated.